A masterful architect of the complete shambles, Phil Ellis plays "a permanently nose-diving version of himself" on stage and in his BBC Radio 4 series "Phil Ellis Is Trying". We discuss disaster, dignity and anger in his back catalogue of shows that go wrong, and get the inside story of Phil's Edinburgh Award-winning "Funz and Gamez"; the kids' show that deliberately and hilariously sails over the heads of the children in the audience. We also learn which disastrous audition left Phil crawling out of the room...

Extra material available to the Insiders Club at www.comedianscomedian.com/insiders includes Phil's candid analysis of exactly how and why the TV adaptation of "Funz and Gamez" went awry...

Responsible for the best reviewed comedy show at Edfringe 2018, Alex Edelman is an irrepressibly funny comic, with a grasp of joke structure and narrative arc that is both innate and studied. We cover his Modern Orthodox Jewish upbringing, and as well as identifying a "a confessional arms race" in modern comedy, he reveals a desperate need to be accepted by his peers. But is he really "solicitous and pandering"?
Extra content for this episode includes Alex's hypothetical "formula" for an award-winning first hour, and why although prescriptive it isn't actually that formulaic. We also get to hear him review himself honestly...
Sign up for all the extras at www.comedianscomedian.com/insiders
Find out more about Alex at
www.alexedelmancomedy.com@AlexEdelmanwww.comedianscomedian.com@StuGoldsmith@ComComPod

Very funny, amazingly watchable, and offering genuine insight into his personal and social politics, Tez Ilyas is a Northern, working-class, muslim comic capable of going all the way. Exceptionally frank about his disappointment on being overlooked for award nomination, he goes on to identify the historic lack of diversity on the judging panel of one of the most highly regarded prizes in British comedy...

To call Max and Ivan a comedy double-act with a narrative doesn’t really do justice to this pair of rubber-faced, multi-voiced storytellers, who have a penchant for sneaking actual theatre into their work.
They’ve only recently quit their day-jobs, but with a run of international festival appearances and award nominations under their belt, it seems to be working out – you could literally just slap them.
Here, the boys outline their writing and rehearsal process, who gets final say over the editing, and which one of them has a google alert for their own reviews…

Part two of the interview sees Richard talking about his standup.
He explores his status and persona onstage, admits which subjects he finds difficult to include in his act, and reflects on his frustration at being labelled derivative of his ex-double act partner.
We also discuss the future of comedy in Britain and Richard’s optimism in the face of a changing landscape.

Richard Herring is a prolific comedian, blogger and podcaster, comprehensively mining his every experience for comic potential. As well as exploring the unique resource of his daily blog, his online strategy and some of his maddeningly self-indulgent impulses, we also discuss his success, and whether it will ever live up to his aspirations…
Part two follows in the next episode of this podcast.